The soup date.
I started going out with him because I liked his smile. He had a smile that made you think you’d met him before. Ok, maybe it was just me. I’m bad with names & faces and when he gave me his first flirty smile I just assumed we had met before. We hadn’t. This was the first time I had ever even seen him. After that, chance had it we ran into each other several times.
At all those short encounters I was super friendly (didn’t want to be rude with this guy whose name I couldn’t remember so I overcompensated). Being a guy, he took it as flirting and asked me out.
We went out a few times and it was ok, but it was always very casual; so it took me a few dates to realise we were completely incompatible.
He was funny and cute, had a pretty smile, and was completely besotted with me. I was coming out of a hideous relationship I still couldn’t recover from after a year. We were having fun.
Then we went for lunch and he ordered soup.
Yes, soup. A seemingly harmful little thing. A comfort meal. A meal that changed everything.
None of our previous dates had included food you needed cutlery for. I know what you’re thinking:
It’s just soup. You only need a spoon to eat soup. How complicated can it be?
Oh you are in for a treat. A very bad one.
After the first spoonful I knew whatever this relationship was could go no further. And also that I should make sure for next guys that there was a cutlery-required date on the first 2 dates.
It took everything I had not to get out of my seat screaming and running away. I wanted to get up and run. I wanted to call my friends and share my misery with them. I kept thinking how could I ever take him for dinner with friends, take him to a wedding… If we decided to have a relationship I would have to avoid any interactions with others that involved food other than tacos. No dinners. Ever. Impossible for him to ever meet my parents like this. Why did he eat soup like an ex-con? Why had I not noticed this before? How did I let this happen?
Since we had come in the same car and there weren’t taxis available there I had to wait and continue to watch him eat soup in what I could only think of as the most uncomfortable way to do so; while I did my best not to pull out my cellphone and text all my friends about the horror that I was living through.
The friends I texted the second I got in the car judged me heavily and thought I was exaggerating. For you to understand you must follow the next instructions.
- Place a bowl of soup on a table in front of you.
- Glue the elbow of the hand you normally use to eat with to the table. The elbow must never, under no circumstance, leave the table.
- Now attempt to eat the soup in front of you.
That was our last date.
